


Broken, Still Good

by BelowBedlam



Series: Lights in the Galactic Dark [1]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Black Character(s), Family, Gen, Haircuts, Her name is Juju lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 17:24:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10470225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelowBedlam/pseuds/BelowBedlam
Summary: Juju Ryder and her father Alec do the best they can. Pre-Andromeda.





	

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

Juju decides against going out tonight because it doesn’t feel right. She has said goodbye to her friends, done her last hurrahs. A few old friends in bed, a few for drinks, her old squad had a barbecue. Visited her grandparents’ and mother’s graves. She could go down to Flux and get a last run in, yeah, but then she could also spend her last nights in the apartment she’d lived in since moving out of her parent’s home.

Besides, she needs to figure out what to do with her hair.

_Knock. Knock-_

“Hold on,” she calls, tugging an old sweater over her head, careless of how the collar snags her bantu knots. “Hold on, I’m coming.” She quiets her music- classic MJ- and pulls open the door without so much as glancing at the peephole even though it's nearly midnight, and she isn’t expecting anyone.

“Jubilee-Jude,” her father says gruffly, nodding. His voice hasn’t gone soft since mama died and before that he wasn't prone to it, but she knows this is just how it is. He rarely means anything by it, but tell that to her brother.

“Daddy. You’re back early,” she says, looking him over. _It’s 11 at night, what the actual fuck,_ is what she doesn’t say. He isn’t due back on the Citadel for another three days. Then it’s business for all of them until they get on the Hyperion Ark and sleep for 600 years.

Alec Ryder looks like he could use the rest. Juju can see age and fatigue carved into his skin like careful impressions of a mourning artist. His eyes are eternally bloodshot.  He’s been working with the Initiative on earth and if he’s here early then they must be, too. Who knows why; Juju stopped asking because it is a chore sometimes, talking too long to her father. All she knows is that, as part of the Pathfinder team, she’s to report to the Hyperion when he does.

She lets him in, locking the door back. Leaving the music low. He waits for her to nod before sitting on her couch. Juju pads into the kitchen, reaches past the tequila in the fridge for a couple boxes of juice. Grabs the last long pack of crackers from the emptied cabinet.

Her father sits with his satchel at his feet. Old dark leather, he’s had it as long as she can remember. She wonders how he plans on showering in the morning. She wonders how long he’s been on the Citadel, and where. It’s possible that he’s just arrived and come to see her, but not quite realistic.

 _Irrelevant_ , she thinks, setting the snacks now on the coffee table.

“I don’t really have any food. Alessa’s coming to take over the place tomorrow because of how her lease ends. I’ve been loose with my credits since, well…” she shrugs, chuckling. “I’ve been trying out all the restaurants I hadn’t ever gotten around to.”

“It’s still a shame you couldn’t at least convince Alessa to apply to the Initiative,” he says, stabbing his juice box with the straw and taking a sip. He’s the reason she’s still stuck on the things after all these years. “She’s an intelligent mind. We could have used her. And you’d be happier.”

“Alessa’s got family, Daddy. _Lots_ of family that she’s close to. Even if she’d wanted to come, I wouldn’t have let her.” They’ve gone over this before, in varying levels of anger, pain, and volume. “We agreed on this near a year ago, you know. We’re fine. She’s dating, I’m jumping galaxies. She gets my place. It’s working out.” _And I told you to leave it damn near a year ago. But you never do, Daddy. You never do. Always got something else to say._

Her father looks at her like he can read her mind, and frowns. “I’m…sorry.”

Juju blinks, nearly chokes on her juice. “Don’t be.”

“I _should_ be.”

“You should be,” she agrees, helpless against the edge creeping into her voice. The steel straightening her back, the Ryder pride lifting her chin. “But don’t bother. It has never fit you.” _And it’s too late._

“And it’s too late,” he sighs. “I know. I didn’t come here for this, Juby.”

“What _did_ you come for?”

“I...wanted to know if you needed anything.”

Juju stares incredulously at him, and checks the time again. He looks around her apartment. On the twenty-third floor of Tiberius Tower it’s fairly quiet, particularly this late at night. Her neighbors are mostly old Alliance military who use the apartments on shore leave. Juju had to name drop her father, Captain Anderson, _and_ flirt with the landlord for the apartment, never mind the deposit. Sometimes the place feels too big, but she’s enjoyed it these last few years.

Her father only sees a place his kid is giving up to follow him into the future. He likes to swim around in his guilt sometimes, and Juju can only admire his endurance because by all accounts, he should have drowned in it by now.

 _That’s not nice_ , she chastises herself. _You know he’s trying and you know he’s broken. All three of you are._

When her father looks back at her, he’s uncharacteristically meek. Maybe the weight of this expedition is getting to him. Still, he could have called first.

Juju twists one of her bantu knots. Her hair needs....something. She wants to change it. She has four different dyes, bleach, and toner, but she’s still not sure.

“Okay, Daddy. Yeah. I need something,” she sighs, standing up. “Come on. I need your help.”

…

Seven years old, Daddy on shore leave, Mama still at her office. Little Juju with her hair all over her head, the rubber bands holding her fluffy twists together now snapped and discarded, because she’s over that particular style. But she didn’t think about the after. About how holding her arms over her head hurts after a while and she can’t get her hair to do anything right.

 _Aw, Daddy. I look ugly, Daddy._ She carries on whenever her father is home and giving her even half his attention because if she doesn’t, it’s like he forgets she’s there a little.

Her father looks at her over the book he’s reading. Just sort of stares, like he’s taking a while to register her. Then his dark eyes reach her hair, and something about that clicks. He smiles. Little Juju feels warm all over.

 _You could never look ugly, Juby. But let’s do something to that head._ He sets his book down and pulls the couch throw over a sleeping Lorenz. It seems like her brother is always tired. Mama says it’s because he’s starting to grow.

Her father takes her into the bathroom and sits her on the sink. He takes water and oil and sweet-smelling conditioner, is soft with the comb and softer with the brush, and gives her seven knots that look tight but are easy on her scalp.

Juju touches the top of each one. _That’s pretty, I like that._

 _Good._ Her father kisses her cheek, and she squeals. _Such a pretty girl._

…

“Please don’t cut me in the head.”

“Hold still then,” her father grumbles, though he’s halfway to a smile. He tilts her head to the side and turns the clippers on. Old-school clippers from a shop on Earth, in London. Juju used them once to give herself an undercut. She hadn’t planned on taking them with her, but she’ll have to now.

She sits on her toilet and lets her father shave both sides of her head because it seems like a good idea when he pitches it, after making a telltale face at each and every box of dye she’d bought.

 _Try something different_ , he'd said. _Go into Andromeda a new woman_ , he'd said.

 _Might as well leave my hair behind with everything else_ , she'd said, shrugging. He'd ignored that.

Her father is gentle with her, and quiet, the buzz of the clippers vibrating in the silence. Juju sits dutifully, hands in her lap, neck loose so he can turn her how he needs. Her hair- long and curled by the bantu knots, fall like loose cotton as its shaved away. The middle strip she keeps is pulled into one big flat twist. She probably looks ridiculous but shit, it's done.

“There.” Her father sits the powered-down clippers in the sink, and looks at his work. He keeps a soft grip on her chin as he turns her this way and that. “Looks good on you.” He strokes her cheek, then the old scar around her left eye. “Pretty girl.”

Juju wants to get up and see for herself, but her father keeps touching her face. She thinks he might say something about how she takes after mama, but he just looks at her and touches. Startled, she sits on the toilet, hands in her lap, covered in hair, and lets him. Too rare to pass up. Once they’re on Hyperion, and in the new galaxy, it’ll be all business. Sir, yes, Sir. No Sir. Ryder this, Ryder that. No Juby. Not even Jubilee-Jude. Just Jude, if he has to differentiate between the Ryders. Jude for business.

Ah. That’s why he’s here. 

She takes his hand, gently pulling it away, and squeezes it. “Let me see it now, Daddy?”

Juju is having breakfast with Lorenz in the morning; her twin is her opposite. Probably left everything to the last minute, including getting his last run in of the club. He’s going to stagger into their favorite breakfast spot with a story to tell, and be equally shocked at her half-bald head as he'll be at seeing their dad so early. Both she and her father know that if he’d gone to Lorenz’s door he might not have been let in, even if her brother had no other plans.

“You like it?”

“Mmm. Yeah.” It brings out her features, at the very least. Makes her look sort of rough, too. She thinks she can cornrow the top back and be alright until she figures out what to do with it. And hell, she can still do her knots and spend a lot less time on them. It's something she'll get used to, but she does like it. “You still got the magic touch, old man.” She turns her head this way and that, running her hands over the cropped sides. “Ooh, I look good.”

In the mirror she can see him smile. It doesn’t warm her like it used to, but she smiles back.

 


End file.
